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Summary

A couple of people on the forum have mentioned that they've broken blades on their Replicator extruder fans. Well, that sounds like a need for a fan guard.

I can't decide which one I like better, the radial, or the honeycomb pattern; so I uploaded both. To tell the truth, I'm not exactly thrilled with either, and I'm expecting someone to come up with a snazzier pattern.

The honeycomb pattern is probably more airflow restrictive, and it might benefit from a larger honeycomb pattern.

Instructions

The honeycomb version had to be printed slow, with absolute levelosity to get a full grid pattern to print.

The radial pattern is easier.

Either will take a bit of cleanup to sharpen up the drool on the overhang for the clips.

It just slides down over the fans from the top, and it should fit snugly. Be sure that the bottom is all the way down against the carriage.

UPDATE 7/18/12: Some people had noted that adding the guard caused a high-pitched whine from the fans. The new files added (all of the *2 versions) move the guard out a bit from the fan blades. This should relieve some of the noise. (I never noticed it much since my Replicator is fully enclosed.)

printed a couple of these.. imported it into Tinkercad and stretched it 4mm vertically, then glued some filament off cuts to make it fit well again.... no issue with fan whine anymore...:) thanks for the design.

I printed out one of these, and i still chipped a fan! There is a critical design flaw, which is that it doesn't account for my laziness.

I do a terrible thing, which is try to take off the fan to clean the extruder, while its running (i know i know). However this requires that i take off the protective plate to get at the screws, which is traditionally when i bang the fan and break a blade.

Perhaps a single extruder version, with room to get at the screws underneath?Â

Thanks for doing this.. ruined a couple of fans..!! Having troubles with the print.. can you specify the settings... the filament is ok for the border, then the extruder looses the grip on the feed as it tries to start the honeycomb infil.. ?

I was pretty green when I did this (still am), so I'm sure I did nothing fancy with the settings. It is really hard to get the honeycomb version to stick though - I recommend the radial version because it prints much easier. You might try it with an acetone/ABS slurry wiped on the platform. I've never done this but people have reported good luck getting things to stick that way.

I noticed the whine but it wasn't intrusive on my enclosed Rep. I can see how it would be annoying though. The whine is caused by the fan blades spinning in proximity to the stationary guard. I have altered the files to space the guard outwards an extra 2mm. I'm hoping this will ease the noise. It'll be tomorrow evening before I can print them up, and if that works I'll post new files.

I tried putting googly eyes on the fans. They fell off when the fans spun up. Putting em on the fan guard would solve that problem. But it'd be great if someone were to create a guard with eyes built in. I'll do it eventually if no one else does, but you shouldn't wait on me as I'm kinda busy these days... :)

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